Fate of the Norns: Ragnarok (not to be confused with the previous product of the same author, just plain "Fate of the Norms", a much earlier release) is obviously a work of love. The author is clearly proficient and interested in the matter and it shows.

The mechanics are clear, interesting and innovative, the setting well-written. I strongly recommend it.

If I could give this game six stars I would. I played it for 16 hours straight at Carnage last year and felt I only barely scratched he surface.

The presentation is first rate with a unique style of art that really evokes the feeling of period artwork.

The Runic play system is full score for evoking the Viking feel. It provides ever changing tactical engagement and allows players to be involved continually, even when in other rules the character would not be active.

The game is set during the End of the World. A bold move, but one that strongly encourages epic play. This is the saga of heroes, not the story of apprentices gone adventuring. Players are free to choose alliance with either the gods or the giants. Neither is entirely siding with the "good guys" or the "bad guys".

If you like epic tale telling, Vikings, and heroic adventure, this is the game for you.

So many good points were made by the other reviewers, so I'll just say I agree. I am a Pathfinder player that discovered FOTN last year. It's really a great change of pace and a step away from generic fantasy and the community is very friendly.

I have been meaning to post this review for the last 6 months at least HA! Better late than never! The subject of my review is less about the core rulebook, cuz I’m sure lots of people have already reviewed it, and more about the RGS. I have been playing the RGS since 2006 and I think my review will be better if I focus my efforts on the RGS 2.0 that was released in the 2013 edition.

For those who never played before:

The futhark set of runes governs all of the game mechanics. You don’t need dice, and your need for a pencil and paper is relegated to taking quest notes. The runes with the personal playmat handle every aspect of the game that requires non-narrative resolution of bookkeeping. The runes are your hit points, your skills, your powers and your actions. When looking at someone’s playmat you can, at a glimpse, know everything about their state and what their potential options may be. If may be daunting to begin with, but to be honest, it’s super easy to pick up. My trick to all new players: each rune you draw is an action. Ie. You draw 3 runes = you have 3 actions. If you are comfortable with that, you are good to go. If you want to go deeper into the rabbit hole, then you can look at the color of each rune. Red runes are physical, blue and mental and green are spiritual. If you want to perform an action that really stresses any of those traits then you can play those runes to create a greater effect. Want to swing that larger than life troll maul? Play a red rune! Comfortable? Want more? Now each of your runes is bound to skills and powers. You want to fire off that power? Play that rune! Easy? Want more? You can combine runes to change the way powers work! Want to double the damage and strike three targets? Play your power with 2 other runes (1 that gives you multi targets and another than amplifies your power). Easy? You pretty much understand RGS 2.0 now! Obviously I am overlooking some of the nuances of the game, and there are many, that make it a crunchy system for those that want to explore it to the max! Now I said runes were your hit points right? And you know you draw your runes at random from a bag when you need to do a skill check and/or start a new round of combat. OK so when you take some damage, you randomly LOSE runes from your bag. They leave the bag and travel down the playmat. See the consequence? You won’t be able to draw those runes ‘till you get healed! OUCH! Damage hurts and you feel it! Again no need to calculate numbers nor use any pencil/eraser. Wheat else? Damn there is so much more cool stuff that I’d say hit up the community on the official forums. We love to help new players get the ropes.

For those who started to play before the 2013 edition, here are the new improvements:

Conditions no longer use tokens, but instead are capped at 4 intensities and represented by a rotated and flipped rune (personal beef of mine now fixed!)

There are 2 new damage types: spiritual and mental. They play differently than physical damage

There are 3 wounds tracks so you can throttle the lethality of your campaign

The Void rune is a customizable rune that cannot be assigned damage and it is always drawn into hand

Each archetype has 3 specializations which now means when all the archetypes are written up, there will be over 50 choices! Core rulebook has 5 archetypes (with 3 specs each)
Honestly at first I wasn’t sure all of the above were improvements especially the Void rune. But after playing for the last year, I can now say that each and every addition made RGS a better system.

All in all, this game rocks my world. Best RPG by far, it’s replaced all other RPGs at our table for the last 7 years. I can’t go back to dice. Rolling, missing and losing my turn… I don’t want to go back to that. It would be like going from Catan/Dominion/7-Wonders to Monopoly… no thanks!

The setting is deep, immersive, and very close to actual norse mythology. It's actually so close to the myth that you can read texts from the Prose Edda and other traditionnal works and weave them directly into the game. The author also chose to eschew the vanilla "let's be vikings in norseland with gods" angle and actually trigged Ragnarok. The result is a neverending winter that feels very close to a post-apocalyptic setting (light sources and food are scarce, people fight for ressources...).

The system is clever, tactical and satisfying. Using runes seems like a gimmick at first but many mechanics (powers are linked to certain runes you draw so you don't get access to all your abilities in one given turn, your runes are withdrawn from the bag as you take damage so your options wither with wounds...) are really refreshing and give something very different from the usual roll and compare.

Every character option is interesting, with loads of flavor and actual use in and our of combat.

The book is a pleasure to read and it's just gorgeous, with either full-color or line art every single page.

You'll need to either find generic Elder Futhark runes somewhere and paint them up (for the color cues), buy them directly from Pendelhaven or print them up on carton. Obviously, stone/wooden runes feel a lot more tactiale and heftier, and play much better during an actual game. That's increased cost for a gaming group, but it's very playable with only paper runes nonetheless.

The rules are a little on the heavy side. They're perfect if you're a D&D/Pathfinder/OSR-avid player, but don't go in there looking for an indie ruleset.

All in all, it's a superb addition to most roleplayers' shelf, be it digital or physical.

1) The book, the rules and the content ooze Viking history and mythology!
2) Unique art on every page of a 370 page book (all color & better production value than Paizo- really)!
3) Runes instead of dice: manage your hit points, skills, powers and social interactions with the runes (no need for pen and paper- well for quest related notes you'll still need it)!
4) Mechanics for creating your own monsters, love this, keeps players guessing!
5) Full cosmology detailing the denizens and worlds of the gods, giants, elves and dwarves but most focus on the human world of Midgard!
6) Dark, dangerous setting where the sun has been swallowed up. Gritty world that lends itself well to epic heroism!
7) Dynamic hyperlinks in the PDF

370 pages of pure gorgeous artwork, fables from the northmen, runic game system with many easy to understand examples, lots of character development options including a nice life-path system and a pretty nifty short saga to get you and your group into the spirit of Fate of the Norns: Ragnarok!

Where to begin? Well it's the Core Rulebook and it has everything: world lore (Ragnarok is brutal!), geography (WOW awesome maps for both mortal realms and the realms of the divinities!), key NPC's (everything from gods and giants to mortal royalty), culture and games (longships to rules for viking chess), the Runic game system (put away your dice, you are playing with rune stones now!), 15 playable archetypes (with 100's of powers and skills), monsters (and more monsters!) and an introductory saga that helps to get one acclimatized to a world where the sun and moon have been devoured! ...and the artwork is eye popping!